The Economics Behind the NFL’s Pay-To-Play Super Bowl Pitch

The National Football League may bring in $10 billion in revenue a year, but it is still pinching pennies.

Several weeks ago, as the NFL informed Katy Perry, Rihanna and Coldplay that they were the leading candidates to perform at the Super Bowl XLIX halftime show, the league asked at least some of the acts if they would share some of their future tour income, or make some other financial contribution, in exchange for the gig, according to people familiar with the matter.

The reason: the NFL—which takes in about $5 billion a year from media and television rights deals, according to sports-marketing research firm Navigate Research—was looking for a way to defray the halftime show’s production costs, which have grown to $10 million, up from $8 million a few years ago, according to a person familiar with the matter. More on this after the jump…